Outline of Aristotle’s Metaphysics

Benedict Ashley O.P.

Part I: WHAT IS FIRST PHILOSOPHY

Book I (Alpha Major): The Need and Nature of a First Philosophy

1) Wisdom
a. Does Wisdom exist?
b. What is Wisdom or First Philosophy?
c. What are it’s properties?
2) How many are the kinds of causes? (dialectic)

Book II (Alpha Minor): Is First Philosophy Worth the Effort?

1) For mortals it is very difficult and cannot attain much.
2) But this little is worthwhile, the goal of human life.

Book III (Beta): The Problems to be Solved.

1) Problems of method
2) Problems about the goal of First Philosophy

Part II: ONTOLOGY

Book IV (Gamma): What Is the Subject of First Philosophy?

1) The subject is Being as Being
2) Principles of knowing: non-contradiction, etc.

Book V (delta): Philosophical Dictionary

1) Terms that signify cause
2) Terms that signify substance or it’s parts

Book VI (Epsilon): What Science Is First Philosophy?

1) It must be a theoretical science and is not history or mathematics, nor,
since it also deals with immaterial reality as well as the material, is it
natural science.
2) It primarily deals with real substance and hence is not logic.
Book VII (Zeta): opinions about the Sensible Substances

Books VIII and IX (Eta and Theta): Truth about Sensible Substances

VIII (Eta): Matter-Form Composition of Sensible Substances

IX (theta): Act and Potency Composition of Sensible Substances

Book X (Iota): The properties of being: the Trascendentals

1) Unity
2) Comparison to Plurality

Part III: THEOLOGY

Book XI (Kappa): Prerequisites to Investigationof Immaterial Substances

(1) Problems of First Philosophy (from Beta)
(2) Problems of subject matter of First Philosophy (from Gamma).
(3) Issues about material being determined in Physics and Beta.

Book XII (Lambda)

1) First Philosophy is about Being as substance and it’s kinds.
2) Sensible substances.
3) Immaterial substances? The Unmoved Mover and other immaterial
movers.

Books XIII and XIV (Mu and Nu): Refutation of pseudo-Immaterial

Substances:
Mathematicals and Ideas as Principles